h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

green tea... with milk....

are... you... insane????

green tea is a beverage akin to the finest single malts, belgian beers, french champagnes... you simply don't adulterate perfection!

If you want a scotch & soda... use a blend
If you want a lager & lime... try a corona
If you want a mimosa... try a cheap sparkling wine

If you want to put milk in your tea.... Don't... but if you must, then any old skanky dark tea will do... honest!

i don't water the whisky, no more than i shove sleepin' chicken's offa the roost and steal sweets from little Russian boys.
Blends, indeed!
Puttin' milk in the tea doesn't quite fall in the same category, bein' at least debatable, at the very least.
I admit to bein' quite fond of cheap bubbly, but of that i ain't proud, no.

chai, tea with milk and sugar, sometimes even tea cooked in milk with sugar, without a doubt, invented in India, where many of the finer items that came to caress the british palate originated; no wonder that land is the erstwhile 'jewel in the crown.' ... such a concoction was emphatically _not an invention of England, nor certainly yet of China. and anyone who knows tea knows there is none finer than that grown on the slopes of the hills below Darjeeling - the kind with long dark leaves and beautiful buds. whether it be first flush or second, if the flowers are in with the leaves the taste is sublime. not to mention the precise length of time required to properly brew and dispense the dark gold, red infusion and the addition before or after of the milk, hot or cold, and the type of sugar, make a vast difference in what finally arrives in the cup to your lip. perish all teabags and the gunpowder (apt name) in them!

Progression from pride to one step short of tea fascism. Interesting.

Another thing to be proud of: eccentrics. We have an inexhaustable supply of unique and original characters. Some are merely amusing; others are essential to modern life. No other country can approach - never mind challenge - English eccentrics.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Gerrard turntables and sports cars made in Oxfordshire

If you're into turntables, what about Linn? Based in Glasgow, their founder - British national Ivor Tiefenbrun - single-handedly transformed the accepted image and performance of the (formerly) humble turntable!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

My dad and me just agreed that we admire and envy the British Parliament, the way it's elected, the way it works, the political culture. The way Parliament worked during the Iraq crisis was exemplary for political culture in my opinion. I might add that i was/am deadset against the whole desert adventure, while my dad is pro.
Maybe it's because GB is looking at about 500 years more experience, compared to Germany, where the Bundestag has deteriorated into an assembly of spineless incompetent turncoats with no other talent than somehow getting themselves elected again and again, though nobody remembers having voted for half the lot at least (has to do with the party lists, via which even those who lose the election in their district can still get into the Bundestag anyway).

german governence, i refer to what was in place prior to the election of the man with the small moustache, was an exemplar. i refer to the weimar republic.

it's the concessions that were exacted from Germany, principly (and the general tenor of arrangements made by the victors in other places, in general), at the end of the first world conflict that made it impossible that the Germans who had migrated across the Channel (from the fatherland to become rulers of that island and other places) would be able to rest easy for very long.

and indeed we had a second world conflict. since the end of that we had a brief period of apparent imperial retreat and then the start of a conflict without end. the only difference now is that it is hotter rather than not.

therefore i posit that british governence is rather not worthy of admiration.

i do, however, admire the bent to the devotion to justice being done.

I told useless hound that she should work up her comments about the weather into a poem. She declined, and so I did it instead.

So - ladies and gennlemen - that strangest of pieces of collaboration - a collaborative poem:

"Whether we like it or not" - A1037143

B

Hey - dudes - has anyone other than the Brits in this thread actually *noticed* the second part to the thread's title and the final comment in the original post? Combine that with the apparent triviality of #5 and what do you get?

B

..."another day older and deeper in debt??"

RE: British Parliament 'working'

I personally think that one of the major saving graces of British politics is its general inability to actually DO anything...

The British (& I do include myself here...) mostly don't like to make decisions... we'd prefer to leave that to the bloody French, or those dashed efficient Germans (sorry- stereotyping everyone here), or the damned Americans

The thing I find most difficult about living & working in the US is that everyone seems to expect me to MAKE DECISIONS! I much prefer decisions to make themselves... which they will if you just leave well enough alone. (Luckily I'm a consultant... so mostly I just have to give ADVICE... see next paragraph!)

Not that I don't have opinions... It's kinda obvious from my postings that I do, as do most of my countryfolks... We just don't expect to achieve anything with them -- at least on anything less than geological timescales.

Advice & Opinions: YES (maybe! why not? sorry - don't quite understand what you're getting at, old man! I don't believe it!)
Decisions: NO (or at least, not yet)

That's an admirable attitude!

I wonder why anybody needs to be British? Or American for that matter? Or any other nationstate affiliation par excellence?

Humm that's true, maybe I should rename my list, reasons why I'm glad I live in Britian.

I've even voted in a local election today for the first time in my life, but thenI'm only 21, they never seemd important before. However now I meet real people, (ie non students) every day Housing and social services now seem important to me.

I have bad news for you all. Just as the best British Columbia Douglas Fir timber can only be bought in Britain because our exports are better than what we keep, the best British Tea blends can only be bought here. Oh, and we have the best Tanqueray as well!

Hear hear, Ana! why any nationstate, indeed? Voting and participating in the governance of your habitat perhaps? though, I do believe it is open to debate whether the act of living and making your living in an area are alone sufficient to grant the right to vote rather than an affiliation with any particular, in the final analysis - arbitrary, grouping.

As I said when asked on another thread, some while ago, it's United Nations all the way and by that I don't mean merely the body domiciled in NYC. I mean it more as laissez passer....

I couldn't care less about living in Britain, or England, but i care passionately about being English.

I have no idea why.

I suppose our work here is done, eh, wot, rather!?

so long as there are people who know not how to make a proper cup of tea... our work will remain
so long as there are people who think that britain = england = london = royal family.... our work will remain
so long as there are people who think they're better than us.... our work will remain

we shall never give up. we shall fight for the right things (so long as that does not have to include cricket). we shall fight for tea breaks, and bank holidays, and summer days that last about two hours if you're lucky. we shall fight for bloody mindedness, and for fair play. we shall fight for organic peas, and scottish angus beef, real ale, and scrumpy. we shall fight for appalling home counties wines, and for scrumptious soft summer fruits. we shall fight for very few TV channels that still have the ocasional good programme. we shall fight for aging disk jockeys with ridiculous nicknames. we shall fight for an arts council that seems to have large canvases up it's collective arts. we shall fight for a booker prize that is always good for a laugh. we shall fight for pomposity, and pleasantness, parsons, and prostitutes, for playing the lottery, and for plying the seas.

i think I'll stop now. (ps you can tell when I'm in auto-rant mode - I forget to capitalize properly)